Firefox 0.9.1 Candidates

Ben Goodger blogged today that Firefox 0.9.1 Candidates are available for testing. To quote him,

Candidates Here - version number still reads "0.9" but these are the 0.9 builds. Please test EM for stopping bugs. This will probably go out Monday. I'd announce this on mz's forums but they're down.

On a side note, Mozillazine forums are down. Have you donated lately?

New in Firefox!

In case you thought that Firefox 0.9 was it, then it just got better. Some of the changes that have made it to the Firefox Aviary Branch are

1) New Firefox secure site notification UI - The secure site indication has been moved from the statusbar to the URLbar. In addition, the color of the URLbar changes when depending on the security level of the web page the user is browsing. The whole idea behind this is to make the secure site indication more noticeable to the user. The icon in the statusbar is often overlooked. However, one thing that the developers had not considered is that many sites that make use of encryption, do so in a new window in which all bars including the URLbar is usually disabled. For example my bank does that. In such scenarios, the user will not get any indication of the encryption level. One way to get around this maybe to prevent sites from hiding the URLbar. Another concern many theme developers were having is that the URLbar will become too cluttered with icons (the favicon as well as the new secure site indication icon). Asa has a screenshot of how this looks in the default theme.

2) New bookmarks manager goodness - Myk Melez, has checked in changes to the bookmark manager. The new bookmark manager now has a windows explorer like interface. This should make organizing bookmarks easier. Head over to Asa's blog for a screenshot.

3) Winstripe updates and Firefox 0.9.1 - Firefox 0.9.1 is going to be released shortly. This is essentially a bug-fix release. It will not include the above changes. However, it will sport an update to the default theme. To see screenshots of the updated theme, checkout Neil's blog.

Gmail for Mozilla

Many developers in the Mozilla community are coming up with extensions for checking GMail accounts.

One of them is the Gmail Notifier by doron. This extension, still in the works, adds a toolbar item to Firefox. Clicking on it, lets you login to Gmail. Later clicking on this button again, opens gmail. Also, the icon updates when you have a new mail in your Gmail account.

The second extension that I came across is Gmail Compose by jedbro. This extension adds a context menu link for opening a GMail compose window when clicking on mailto: links.

So if you have Gmail account, then go get these extensions and give them a try. And if you don't use Firefox, then go download it here.

Thanks Asa!

Asa Dotzler has been regularly giving away invites to gmail accounts for the past two weeks. I was one of the lucky ones in the round of invites which he gave away yesterday.

Thanks Asa!

Gecko news and more...

The week gone by started did not start out good for Firefox. It got involved in a controversy related with Ben Goodger replacing Qute, the default theme developed by Arvid Axelsson with Winstripe developed by the Mozilla Visual Identity Team. The theme was replaced because of some licensing disagreements. Qute, which has matured over time continues to be available as a standalone download from quadrone.org/graphics as well as update.mozilla.org.

However, the same week also saw the release of Mozilla Firefox 0.9, Mozilla Thunderbird 0.7 and Mozilla Suite 1.7.

If that wasn't enough reason to rejoice, came along the news that Nokia is funding Minimo.

Unemployed!

I joined the ranks of the unemployed today. Of course this is only temporary! I am in the middle of changing jobs. Yesterday was my last day with my previous employer. From Monday, I shall be joining another company. I was in the previous company for a total of two and half years.

From Monday I am going to be employed again. So enjoying my two days of unemployment as much as I can.